We would like to travel from Luxembourg to Lucerne. Trains are very expensive ($300-400 per ticket??) unless you go overnight. Other trains are overnight and I hate to get to Lucerne overtired when we arrive since we only have less than 2 days in Lucerne.
Should we rent a car? How are the charges if you pick up in Luxembourg and drop in Lucerne? If so, any recommended companies or idea on cost?
Where are you seeing tickets for that price? Generally dropping a car in another cars incurs huge drop fees. Often more than the cost of the basic car rental. The only way to know for sure is price it out. But your $400 doesn't seem correct either. What are you travel dates?
Google will show you that fares are much less than $300 one way. Many daytime trains, under seven hours. www.bahn.com or bahn.de for schedules and fares.
Just looking at a random date 10 days from now, I see 19.40 EUR to Trier, then a Sparpreis ticket from Trier to Luzern for 59.90 EUR. That is about $100 US per person.
Edit - Actually I see it is 64.90 EUR or 69.90 EUR from www.bahn.com from Trier to Luzern, depending on the routing. Those are train-specific Sparpreis Europa tickets. Specify a stop over in Trier to get this ticket.
Is it too confusing or risky to connect trains as follows? This is actually the fastest route 1 hr 35 min plus 3 hours
https://www.trainline.eu/search/luxembourg/strasbourg/2018-08-30-06:00
$17.60
07:24 am Luxembourg
08:59 am Strasbourg
SNCF
TGV 9877
and then
https://www.trainline.eu/search/strasbourg/luzern/2018-08-30-06:00
$65.93
09:51 Strasbourg
11:09 Basel SBB
SNCF
TER 96215
22 min transfer time
11:31 Basel SBB
11:55 Olten
IC 1069
11 min transfer time
12:06 Olten
12:55 Luzern (Lucerne)
IC 4721
Can anyone critique this for me? This is for Aug 30. Do I need to buy in advance?
There's no problem at all with the connection times you cite.
Ther's usually not a price advantage if you buy Swiss tickets in advance. The slow French TER fares do not change. So I think it's only that initial short TGV leg where you have price variability. Checking today's fares, I see that the cost can go as high as €59, so there's a substantial advantage to buying that ticket early. If you're making this trip the same day you fly into Luxembourg, however, it's difficult to know what time you'll be ready to hop on a train. Perhaps someone else can help you with the timing.
I don't know what to suggest about the tickets for the additional legs, since it is always more comfortable to have the tickets in hand rather than standing in line at a ticket counter or ticket machine, but you still have the timing issue, and I don't know about buying domestic Swiss tickets outside Switzerland. Since you'll have lots of time in Strasbourg if you take this routing, I'd plan to buy tickets for the rest of the journey there if you haven't already been able to get everything in Luxembourg (which I think is unlikely--but I could be wrong).
Can anyone critique this for me? This is for Aug 30. Do I need to buy in advance?
That is very doable. You have from nearly an hour in Strasbourg to 11 minutes in Olten. Olten should be fairly easy if i remember correctly, there about three platforms, pretty easy to navigate.
I would probably buy in advance once you are sure about your itinerary. The cheapest fares don't allow for changes.
With the itinerary you gave, only the TGV from Luxembourg to Strasbourg is train specific with an advance ticket. Strasbourg to Basel is a TER, so you can take any train that day. For Basel to Luzern, you can also take any train that day on the route shown on the ticket.
